Refugees commonly have just one remaining identity--that of being stateless and statusless. They represent the ultimate "other in our midst". The humanism of our teachers in helping the children of asylum-seekers and refugees is tested by the state, especially its immigration policy. This paper offers preliminary research findings on teachers'…

This paper presents a qualitative study about how teachers entering the profession at different times over the last five decades made sense of their professional lives and continuing professional development (CPD) experiences against the backdrop of the CPD policy infrastructure and wider educational context in Hong Kong. The life history method…

One of the challenges of teaching citizenship is that it can be understood in a variety of quite different ways. Singapore has a centralized education system, where political leaders wield direct influence over citizenship education. Social studies is a major vehicle for citizenship education, with a focus on nation-building. The official…

Drawing on experiences in his social studies classroom, Houman Harouni evaluates both the challenges and possibilities of helping high school students develop critical research skills. The author describes how he used Wikipedia to design classroom activities that address issues of authorship, neutrality, and reliability in information gathering.…

Teachers' expectations are consistent predictors of performance outcomes for elementary, middle, and secondary students. However, the literature is not as clear in articulating exactly how teacher expectations influence such outcomes. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine whether perceptions of teachers' expectations are predictive of…

Over the past half century, much has been learned about the ways in which students develop and learn. Unfortunately, this knowledge often does not find its way into the classroom. Teachers can begin to use this knowledge by focusing on a few key ideas. They need to go beyond the presentation of content to helping students acquire strategies for…

Teacher workload has been a recurrent concern in education in England and Wales for a number of years. One possible solution that has been put forward is the greater use of information and communications technology (ICT). In the spring of 2002, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) launched a 1-year initiative called the Transforming…

Early in her life, Nancy King discovered that stories are rich sources of wisdom, imagination, creativity, and comfort. In this essay, King describes her personal experiences developing and using the collaborative storymaking process with young people and adults in various school settings. The author states that collaborative storymaking…

Government inspection of initial teacher training (ITT) courses in England is frequent, relentless and high-stakes. How confident should providers be about the consistency of judgements made through inspection? This article researches outcomes of the 1999-2002 round of inspections of secondary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses.…

The primary aim of this study was to explore the views of Turkish state primary school EFL teachers about songs and using songs in teaching English to young learners. English language teachers' (n = 52) opinions were collected through a questionnaire and the results demonstrated that Turkish EFL teachers have strong beliefs about the pedagogical…

Teachers' personal self-efficacy about their ability to motivate students and encourage learning has been shown to affect the classroom they create and student achievement. Therefore, research has been conducted on ways to increase teacher efficacy for in-service and pre-service teachers. One area of research that has been explored is the impact…

Results-based management has gained currency in Kenya. After pre-service training, teachers take various staff development programmes to enhance their role effectiveness. Many studies which have associated staff development with employee productivity have not delved into the actual mechanisms in which staff development impact on teachers'…

A solid understanding of "inferential statistics" is of major importance for designing and interpreting empirical results in any scientific discipline. However, students are prone to many misconceptions regarding this topic. This article structurally summarizes and describes these misconceptions by presenting a systematic review of publications…

In this paper, pupils' misconduct in the classroom is interpreted as a change from on-task to off-task behaviour. This change entails a switch from a current learning behaviour to an activity that is more attractive to the student but that is seen as a discipline problem by the teacher. Thus, academic and non-academic goals of pupils rival one…

This study surveyed 45 selected primary and secondary schools in Botswana which aimed to identify how parent and community involvement in the governance of schools affect teacher effectiveness and improvement of learner performance. The study started from January 2005 to December 2006. Literature review, administration of questionnaires, interview…